Tash Ashby: the inquest continues
On 23rd June 2025, Herefordshire’s newly appointed Coroner, is holding the next stage of Tash Ashby’s inquest. Despite being a vulnerable care-leaver, Tash died aged 21 in a tent in Hereford’s bus station where she’d been living for several months. You can read more about her death here.
The pre-inquest review hearing will start at 11am at the Town Hall in Hereford and will be a chance for the new Coroner, James Bennett, to meet the parties and review the state of the evidence.
The inquest was opened on 4th November 2024. Since not a single Council officer and not a single corporate parent attended, it would appear that Herefordshire Council did not consider Tash’s death worthy of attention. But at that first hearing, thanks to the tenacity of the family, the facts of this case started to flood out, and the coroner had little hesitation in adjourning the inquest so that its scope could be broadened. Herefordshire Council was asked to prepare answers to three key questions:
Why was Tash living street homeless, when she was a vulnerable care leaver?
What was Herefordshire Council doing to safeguard her?
Is her death part of a pattern of systemic failure at Herefordshire Council?
When Herefordshire Council was asked why no officer and no Councillor attended the first inquest hearing in November, their official response stated Herefordshire Council had not been “invited” to or “included” in the hearing and “were not aware of the hearing”.
This claim is blatantly untrue and shows a level of incompetence or indifference which is shocking, but not surprising. The hearing was an open hearing. Anyone was able to attend without being invited or included. The date of the hearing was published on the Council’s own website just like every other inquest in Herefordshire. The members of the public who did attend found the date, time and location of the hearing on the Council’s own website.
The public went because either they knew Tash or were concerned about a young care leaver dying in a tent in the middle of Hereford. But no officer and not a single corporate parent attended. This is a brutally awful fact.
The hearing on Monday 23rd June 2025 is in the Town Hall and starts at 11am. It is advertised on Herefordshire Council’s website in the same way the first inquest was. FAC Herefordshire hopes that senior officers and some of Tash’s corporate parents past and present will be there.